I still want the whole cesspool of secrecy known as electronic voting cracked open for everyone to inspect. I personally find the whole idea of unaudiable elections to be un-American, and wouldn’t be surprised to eventually learn there were loopholes exploited and shenanagans shenanaganed.
And I think the only reason we didn’t get more surprise upsets this election were because (a) the pre-election margins were ridiculously large to be closed by mere happenstance, and (b) the elections were monitored.
Didn’t someone post a thread here recently with almost that exact same speculation? That the Republicans were intentionally losing the midterms so that they could blame a worsening Iraq on the Democrats and retake power in 08?
I’ve never personally thought they would deliberately throw the match, but certainly many of us have anticipated that the lemonade they’ll squeeze out of defeat is a convenient place to lay the blame. My take on it is they kind of played chicken with reality, and the ejector seat, if you will, should they lose that game, is somewhere else to lay the blame for their own wreck. But I don’t think they wanted to lose. They just weren’t willing to do much to change course as disaster loomed. They chose to stick to their guns, for the most part, and the consequence will simply require different strategies to avoid responsibility.
Or else the Dems merely won an election, fair and square, just like the Republicans won the previous ones, fair and square.
And all the flatus about election rigging was merely sour grapes from the losers.
The Dems aren’t going to complain about an election unless they lose it. It’s that simple. Feel free to insist that it was really all about a deeply-felt commitment to fairness and so forth - I didn’t believe you then and I don’t believe you now.
There is exactly the same amount of reasonable evidence for systematic vote rigging now as there was then - none. The fact that the Dems pitched two years of hissy fits over it and now instantly abandon the excuse means that it was no more than that - an excuse.
What it boils down too is…where’s the beef? Where is the evidence of consistant systemic problems with the eVoting machines? Consistant victories for the GOP where they were behind and then somehow magically won? As I’ve said every time this stupid subject has raised its ugly head (for the past 2 years, if not the past 6)…where is the fucking evidence? Not speculation, or stringing together of ‘facts’ and ‘data’ by the faithful, but evidence that is plausable to someone who ISN’T a dyed in the wool Dem. By, say, a neutral third party with no interest at all? Show me the beef Der…or get over it already.
Once more…are the machines flawed? You betcha. Should they be fixed? Absolutely. But the government getting a flawed product that doesn’t work as billed is old had in contracting…its not an indication of some vast shadowy conspiricy. Its fucking business as usual, US government style…
Just to make a quick point here, my friend. I remain convinced that there were specific instances of electoral fraud in Florida in 2000, because of the documented circumstances. I don’t claim that there definitely was any widespread Roving band of conspirators pulling dirty tricks everywhere.
Example of one clearcut situation: In the infamous PBC “butterfly ballot” there were persons who inadvertently punched their Presidential vote for Buchanan, realized it before actually casting their ballots, and, as state law provides they were entitled to, asked for a new ballot. The polling attendants, apparently running short of ballots, declined to give them a new ballot, and ***told them specifically to repunch their ballot for the candidate they desired (Gore, presumably) and circle the accurate punch-vote with pen or magic marker, so the polling attendants would know how to tally the vote. From all the evidence I have been able so far to get on that particular circumstances, those ballots were thrown out as “overvotes” because of having two Presidential tickets punched – and there were a number of Republican blogsters claiming they should not be counted – when the voters were denied their statutory right to a new ballot on request (as noted, apparently because the precinct was running short of ballots) and when they marked their ballots as specifically instructed by the polling attendants as how to cast a valid vote. Did this one particular group change the results? Probably not. Were they denied their effective right to vote? In my humble opinion, definitely – when they followed instructions and their votes were then thrown out for their having done so, their legal right to a replacement ballot having been denied. If you want to defend that particular case, I’d love to read your reasoning.
Now, other cases are nowhere near as clearcut, merely suspicious. For example, when a leading official promises publicly to deliver a state’s vote for a given candidate, who then carries that state amid rumors of dirty tricks, that’s not proof of anything but it does lead to suspicion. Whether that official is Mayor Daley of Chicago, T.J. Pendergast of Kansas City, Katharine Harris in Florida, Ken Blackwell in Ohio – it’s a bipartisan and perennial concern.
As for me, I despise George Allen’s attitudes, but if there are any questions about his having been defeated, I’ll support his right to a fair recount, and if that recount says he won the Virginia Senate race, I’ll say he’s entitled to six years in the Senate. I may gag a bit at doing so, but I’ll stand by what’s fair.
Not a national issue, but in one of the state legislature races here in North Carolina, a mere 7 votes plurality stands between the winner and the (losing) incumbent. That one demands a careful recount IMO – anything that close does! And I’m carefully not identifying the parties of the two – because in this case that’s the least of my concerns.
Overall, I couldn’t be happier. There were a few good Republicans who got tarred with too broad a brush IMO, but the party as a whole has taken a sanctimonious attitude that they and they alone stand for Truth, Justice, and the American Way – and instead are in bed with big business, the religious right, and page boys. (Odd mix of the metaphorical and literal there! ;)) There were people who deserved their comeuppance, and got it yesterday. There were others they dragged down with them, whose chief fault appears to have been party loyalty. For the latter, I’ll feel some regrets. And there are no doubt a few (hopefully a very few) self-aggrandizing pricks and venal ward-heelers among the Democrats elected, whom I shall not be upset to have identified and forced to resign over the next year or two.
You have thrown down the gauntlet and I am ready to accept. Please post, in the coming weeks, any evidence of fraud, by a democrat or not, and I will look at it. If you have the same evidence that was given in Florida 2000, then I guarantee you, I will call for the true victor to be recognized and the parties involved prosecuted. This, regradless of whether or not they R or D.
You are wrong Shodan. There are those amongst us who do have a “deeply-felt committment to fairness and so forth”. You see, we are true patriots. Why do you hate America?
I am a little confused about these signing statements too. Why on earth would they be considered binding?
To me, it is like walking into a bank to sigm my mortgage. As a I sign it, I say, I declare that I am signing this mortgage, but that I will only make payments 4 times a year, the interest rate is 2% and the bank will make up the difference in 15 years if I have not paid it all the way off. Then, the camera pans to the banker saying “damn, he made a signing statement, I guess we are screwed”.
I still don’t understand this “well you won, so no fraud happened now or ever” conclusion. What kind of fucked-up logic is that, anyway? There’s no necessary connection. And some of us are worried about minimizing risk, even in the absense of fraud, if there is potential for fraud. What the hell to people have against robustness?
There is a proper use for signing statements, and it is to give the President (or state governor with sign/veto power) the same right to “leave a trail” in the event the courts need to interpret a less-than-precise application of the law to a given circumstance. In so doing, most courts will look at the “legislative history” of the measure – what the gentlemen of the Congress (/state legislature) alleged they were doing in their speeches, committee remarks, etc., connected with consideration of the bill as it was passed into law. F’r example, Joe dies, leaving two kids by his late first wife and a surviving second-wife widow, in a state which still recognizes common-law marriages. Said state has recently passed a Defense of Marriage amendment complete with the “and no civil unions either!” language. Kids allege that the common-law second marriage is not valid due to the DOM amendment. Court looks at it, sees they’ve got a quasi-valid argument. Counsel for the widow brings up the debate in which a minority legislator says, “But this clause B will throw out all the common-law marriages in the state too!” and the bill’s chief sponsor, the man who introduced it, says, “No, it won’t. That’s not what that language means. They are marriages under the law and they stay marriages.” Ergo, to anyone but a strict textualist, the widow’s marriage to the deceased was not invalidated. That’s looking at legislative history, in a nutshell, though the other more typical examples get really abstruse.
Now if a President or state governor writes out a proclamation to attach to the law saying why he’s signing it into law, he’s doing no more than giving his own understanding of what the law is supposed to do and why he approves of it – adding his bit to the same legislative history.
Mr. Bush, of course, is (at least sometimes) using them to say what he wants them to mean, and that he won’t enforce them except in the circumstances he wants to. And that’s obviously an abuse. But it doesn’t rule out the valid use of them.
Why “truncate the process” now, Schumer, you scumbag? What saddens me is that I’m not seeing fair-minded Democrats telling him to shut the fuck up and to let the recount happen. Why not, I wonder? When is fair not fair?
(FTR, I hope with all hope that Webb wins, so don’t try to hang any partisan shit on me)
(and no, I didn’t get this from any “blog”, I remembered it myself)
Around here plenty of people are suggesting that the recounts should go forward. Every vote should be double-checked, if necessary.
I also hate it when a person’s concession is treated as the end of the contest. Fuck that. It’s the voters’ votes. Just because a person makes a political calculation to throw in the towel, I’ve always felt that it ain’t over until my vote is counted.